Electric damsel is breathing heavy, star fish dismembered.

[joshpedd]

I have a 29 gallon with a power filter 20-40, and a more then sufficent air stone, and new heater. and I had a ten gallon for a couple months which functioned perfectly with a chocolate chip star fish, just to see if i could handle salt water tanks. Now I decided to move to my 29 set it up and the filter was used so I figured it had enough bacteria to be fully cycled. Got a electric blue damsel just before setting up the 29 and did fine for one day in the ten. let the 29 sit for about a week and then put my star and damsel into it. after one hour the damsel had very heavy breathing and wont leave the bottom and on his side.

My stars arm or leg fell apart and eventually fell off the glass and showed little signs of life and I'm pretty positive has passed now. My temp is 79 and salinity is 1.204 im going to my LFS tomorrow to get my exact parameters. I have a fan blowing across the top and I have no live rock. What could I do to help my damsel?

And he has a small scar on his side

 

[thincat]

You have gone about it backwards. You should always check for ammonia, nitrite and nitrate before adding any livestock to a new tank. It seems that you did not cycle your new tank. You should get a liquid test kit and test the water parameters yourself. You also need to add at least a pound of liverock per gallon of tank water as your main filter or for a fish only have a power filter big enough to handle a 29g.
PS: how rude of me....welcome to AA.....

 

[melosu58]

Also did you use new substrate or used old. If you used the old then that caused a spike.

 

[dannyb]

Your salt levels are off the chart, Should be around 1.025ish. Not 1.204...
And with no LR, Your filtration is useless. My bet is ammonia/Nitrite killing your stock. Get yourself some test kits, LR, STUDY (read net and books), And a better filtration system, ie sump, fuge or weekly water changes.

 

[thincat]

dannyb good catch, I missed it...

 

[cmor1701d]

So far it seems that all the responses are correct. I also see you have a "more then sufficent air stone'. Aire stones are not generally used in SW tanks. You want to add a power head or two to circulate the water and create a rippled surface. The airstone adds oxygen to the water only when the bubbles break the surface. But it also causes additional salt creep.

Get a refractometer to test your salinity. Swing arms are generally not consistent. As stated you want an SG of 1.022 - 1.026 and that shoud be stable, not fluctuating.

The star losing limbs was probably due to osmotic shock from SG changing too quickly, or beyond it's livable range. Once they start doing that they rarely recover.

 

[joshpedd]

I got a powerhead and corrected my salt and now he is fine. Thanks

 

[melosu58]

Good news. Glad to hear he is doing OK.

 

[joshpedd]

My blue damsel just died. Last night was bright blue and eating and today i found him completely white.

 

[cmor1701d]

Sorry for your loss. It probably couldn't recover from the initial damage.

 

[melosu58]

Sorry about the loss. Hopefully you can find out why.